Cross traces the continuities between early Israelite religion and the Canaanite culture from which it emerged; explores the tension between the mythic and the historical in Israel's religious expression; and examines the reemergence of Canaanite mythic material in the apocalypticism of early Christianity and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

The essays contained in this book are preliminary studies directed toward a new synthesis of the history of the religion of Israel. Each study is addressed to a special and, in the authors view, unsolved problem in the description of Israel's religious development.